Topic: Miners Union Global (Read 1414 times)

Digital Doom did you even read anything I posted? If you did you would know the notion isn't for some kind of central group to control everything. However with increased cost of hardware and time, miners will become serious businesses, and have a vested interest in the decisions of Bitcoin Foundation overall going forward. Something to consider. I am not a BF member so I really have no idea what occurs there on the mining side of things or how decisions are made. So far there is no reason to question it. Overall it probably is a terrible idea and at this point certainly not necessary, and against the Bitcoin ethos.

As noted, I agree that keeping Bitcoin decentralized as much as possible is a crucial ingredient for its overall success. Too much control from any one area could be fatal, as our current financial hellhole is evidence of already.

HOWEVER

Again this is just a discussion based on a graphic I created just for fun for fellow miners, I have no intent to start or manage any such organization, though I am thinking of creating a new mining community site and news blog as I havn't seen any like that yet out there. So chillax  

In reality cryptominers are the new gold rushers, you have to bring your own mining equipment yourself and bore the all the risks of it as the gamble that it is and accept the parameters the mothership gives us to do so, and have a chance to strike it rich. I can however see a day somewhere when miners will have words about transaction fees when it really starts to matter as less and less Bitcoins are forged, but a distant future issue if it would become one at all.


I'm more than happy to do that, I wasn't trying to start an open revolt here, just thought it might be a worthy discussion following *for fun* design work.  I think Im going to cap this thread and start a new one for just the graphics without the rest

Forget the serious side of making some sort of union or 'voice'...

...and stick with making cool illustrations for mining *ahem* guilds or clans akin to PC and Console gamers.

Agreed! Don't even agree with tossing the idea around in your head. It's a bad decision that completely undermines the entire concept.

@ OP: There will always be greedy individuals or groups looking to gain control whenever power or money (I know...they're one and the same) is involved. That's one truth that will remain until the end of time.

The best way to ensure this never happens (IMHO) is to allow multiple currencies to flourish. It seems that already there's a segment of the community with an elitist attitude. I've only been here about 2 weeks and already found a large portion of bitcoin supporters who thumb their nose to other currencies, but in all honesty I see no other way to fulfill the "free-economy" ideal.

The very idea of bitcoin being THE one and only worldwide currency is the most dangerous and destructive scenario I could imagine. Not only would it become exactly what it's meant to destroy, it would be the worst and most powerful form of it that ever existed in the history of man.

I don't think most people can even grasp just how dangerous a game we're all playing here. People are only looking at the good bitcoin could do. For all the incredible good bitcoin (or something like it) could do in the benefit mankind, it could be equally damaging and destructive. As with all power, it can be used for good or for evil in equal measurements!

Freedom is nothing to take lightly. It's extremely fragile, everyone choosing to have it must fight with passion to keep it! Here in America, our Forefathers understood this perfectly, they were willing to offer their lives for it. Today we've regrettably forgotten!

Tell me you're joking. Really. GTFO.

This goes against everything bitcoin stands for.

Tell me you are fucking not serious.

Since the word "union" seems have some negativity around it, and rightfully so, here are some alternatives that feel a little more with the tone here




Therein lies the real question, how would something like this work, what would the goals be. One thing could be getting support of vendors to meter their product release or somehow randomize who gets what and when to limit a cash grab from any one individual or group at any time. No idea if such an idea would be practical in reality, but an idea of the issues to focus on.

These things have to be the first business entities in history actively trying to keep a financial system debased on purpose.

As Bitcoin grows so will the politics, going it alone doesn't sound like much fun in the future.

A balanced answer, not keeping with the anarcho-libertarian thinking, is - it depends.


It would depend on how such a union is structured to mitigate the negative aspects of centralization of power.

As noted, I just made the graphic for the hell of it, but why not explore an idea.

I would never propose something anything similar to real world labor unions and the like, as yes they have absolutely shown to become corrupted to failure and too powerful. Not what I'm thinking at all. If anything more just a mining community

I agree that we not only should, but need to keep mining decentralized for the system to keep operating correctly with no one entity able to sway it. You seem to propose that guild owners and Bitcoin Foundation make all the decisions and hold all the cards, how is that different? The coders can be organized but the miners can't be and shouldn't have a say about things like transaction fees when that directly impacts business? I'f were investing $1000s into the next generation hardware you're damn right we should have a say about things like that. Im from a future standpoint when these are not garage operations anymore but invested Bitcoin businesses with serious capital involved. Bitcoin Foundation isn't eating the hardware cost, we are.

Aside the voluntary metering of ASIC product distribution by the company, there is effectively nothing stopping an investor armed with a few million to simply buy most of the hashing power on the network. Nothing to worry about today I think, but what about tomorrow? How do we deal with a problem like that? There someday will be someone greedy enough to try that who is just in it for the ROI and not the overall message.

Im just talking a cooperative trust, not a central "Union" union or operating like one, propagate the message of Network First and discourage mining monopolies in relation to the 51% issue. Any dues to fund site ops and hosting would be voluntary donations and made public in the spirit of Bitcoin transparency. Old school unions helped get us all in this mess, not what I would be after at all with this.  This is our world, we can make a new breed of cooperatives to further galvanize Bitcoin and push it forward.

Bitcoin Foundation protects the integrity of the protocol, Miners Union Global would protect the integrity of the network and develop better and more secure open source mining hardware and standardized software.

Bear in mind it doesn't have to be called that either, again we're just discussing the concept





 

As a libertarian, I'd like to take this opportunity to cyber-smack you upside the head for this horrible idea... A union for a bunch of people that want to destroy all the unions in the world? Jeebus.

You'll find that the majority of miners are helping bitcoin in order to DE-centralize power, not centralize it further.

Any "voice" we need to speak loudly for miners can come from the guild owners or the bitcoin foundation itself.

/thread

As time goes on those issues will matter more and more as hobbyists convert to investors and entrepreneurs with something to lose, having a more official representation would be beneficial when voicing our interests and concerns to Bitcoin Foundation and the like in future revisions of Bitcoin software. Even a cooperative trust that we that join the union will put network health above business interests as a gentleman's agreement. We are the new banking industry, and it's our responsibility as the hardware operators to ensure the network runs smoothly and is not victim to any one party. Based on this, I wouldn't think its unfair that our interests are heard as one.

But we're also the ones investing the most in time and real world money to propagate and strenthen the network, until now simply volunteering as an interesting distributed computing experiment. But Bitcoin has hit the big time, and things are going to change into a whole new industry and with it investing a giant amount of capital. Everyone's getting serious now about this now.


I suppose much like a traditional one, there would be some kind of operating agreement and standards to abide by, a central leadership to represent us to other large organizations and the Bitcoin hardware industry, dues to fund Union activities and actions (all assets and transactions would be 100% public), assuming something more traditional is wanted. Something run democratically where everyone gets a say by vote for all Union initiatives. To be a badge wearing member one must adhere to the code and be active in the organization.

Not sure what kinds of operating rules there would be or need to be just yet

How would this proposed union work?

they should have a say in the current fee debate.

vested interests and all...   

I was just messing around with Illustrator and came up with a hypothetical logo for a crypto-currency mining union like those that were born out of the original goldrush, please use it if you would like in your own projects. The Latin means "connected through strength".



Then it got me thinking further, could miners use a more centralized voice in the cryptocurrency mining community as it becomes a more serious business venture? There are concerns about 51% attacks as powerful new ASIC hardware comes online, system security, and other topics that could use centralized discussion. Just a thought, even as competition increases between miners, there should also be cooperation.

Think this should be real? Lets discuss

Operatr